WoW – More fun together!

Tanking 101: Nexus of insanity (pull by pull)

Like the previous Old Kingdom post I will do this completely from memory. Unlike the other post I will not do it ‘pull by pull’. This one will use more of the ‘yeeeehaaaa! Everyone diiiiies!!’ strategy of pulling.

Nexus is actually a bad one for multi pulls. It is bad because there are plenty of groups you can’t really move. I will cover those… a screw-it, no talky, gogogo

Pull 1: I need just enough time to pop thorns , GotW, bearform, enrage, and hopefully by now I am in range of the first pull. This one makes my bear cry. The reason is that there is just ONE target… AND it is far too far from any other group to do as a multi pull. I know, I have tried… it just is not worth it. (healer’s thoughts: oh noez it is one of THOSE tanks!)

Pull 2: With any luck the dog and guy spiral ramp patrol is near the bottom. This makes it easy to drag them into the first of the frozen guys. While you are at it grab a few more. (healer’s thoughts: that was not so bad.. where is he going? Oh ****!)

Pull 3: If you accidentally drop that first few frozen guys before you round up the next you will have to make up for it by pulling the boss with the group before or after or both. This is some of the nastiest multi pulling anywhere. Those archers are shooting multi shots at people; turn them around. The boss is whirlwinding; move him off your clothies. The clerics are healing; interrupt them. You healer is going into cardiac arrest; find your gnomish army knife. (healer thoughts: aaaiiiiieeeeee!!!! *urk*)

Pull 4: Finish off pulling the rest of the frozen guys and the next dog and guy ramp patrol. That is assuming you messed up and left any alive after your last ‘pull’. Now is a good time to check and see if your healer has dropped group. I have lost them about here at least once. If they have not dropped they are probably drinking and chanting ‘I can’t believe we are alive’. Make sure you get to the top of the ramp before he has time to type ‘wait’. (healer thought: waaaaiiit!)

Pull 5 Boss: These packs of 4 are great because they are all melee. Be certain to round up the first pack and then run for the next one. If the ramp patrol was at the top of the ramp you might want to only do that and the first pack. If so hang your head in shame. You can at least pull one pack with the boss and make up for your lameness. If you already got the pat charge for the second pack with the first and then pull the boss with those two packs. This boss is fun because you get to time your AOE hits while getting tossed around the room. (Healer thought: O.O)

Pull 6: If the pat is at the top of the ramp you might have to do it by itself (/cry). (healer thought: We lived! wow… this is not so bad)

Pull 7: Make up for that lame pull by pulling through first platform and onto the second one. The first one has no rift, making this pull possible. You are probably going to drop the first caster though. Don’t worry too much. That one slow witted DPSer will probably solo it before noticing you are on the next platform fighting 7 guys. (healer thought: surely he can’t do anything too crazy here… where did the tank go?)

Pull 8: Jump off and kill the pack there. These guys are annoying to move around so just single pull them (/pout). But hey, with any luck the hunter’s pet will bring some more when it round around the long way.

Pull 9: You CAN pull this group up to the boss and do both. Having done it I don’t recommend it. Not because it is hard, but it usually slows down the boss fight. Plus you can’t move the rift so that is nasty. If you must you might consider getting the boss and dragging it back to the rift. Because you are insane to still be reading I will assume you did this and go right to the next.

Pull 10: Run though the pack below the platform and run up to the last one with a rift. That one you ran though has casters and so does the next one so this will be slightly tricky.

Pull 11-12: How far can you get before stopping to AOE them down? Those little saplings are annoying and the DPS insist on stumbling into random trees and dryads. With luck you can clear the ankle biter gauntlet with just two distinct fights. (healer thought: I had mana once. It was nice)

Pull 13: Of course you pull the last pack into the big elemental boss. Weeee! Ice makes a fun ride. The last time I did this we had two dps down and it sure was a long fight.

Pull 14: Run up the tunnel, jump down, engage, and drag that pack past the last Ancient. You can avoid him by hugging the wall. It saves a second or two. Make up for that cowardice by pulling a dragon patrol or two.

Pull 15: Naturally you are going to do the final dragon boss and the add near her at the same time (duh). Don’t let your healer’s whining or the out of breath panting of the DPS distract you from jumping up and down. That ice debuff still hurts.

Do all that right and your party will be in awe. Do it wrong and they will be blogging about your epic fail status.

Yes, I have done every one of these pulls. I did most of them yesterday.

Analogue says: please, please, for the love of God and all things holy, don’t listen to him, baby tanks! I think I need to stage an intervention here…

Like this:

LikeLoading...

Related

6 Responses

Bwahahaha. As someone who once healed a tank that felt he had to pull things and clear the whole instance (which was Kara, back in the day) in about as much time as it took me to read this post, I can very much relate to the healer’s thoughts.

On an adjacent note, I think At and I are about the only two people in existence who usually prefer to go the opposite direction in Nexus. PUGs always freak out. “y u goin rong way?” Like there’s a wrong way in square-ish shaped instance.

We used to always go the other way back when Wrath first came out. Actually … the whole time I played Horde we went counterclockwise. It wasn’t until I switched to Alliance that people started going left first.

I have a long way to go to get up to these kinds of pulls. I got ‘adventurous’ last night though and pulled all three trash groups before Paletress in ToC (regular, not Heroic .. not quite up to handling three Priestesses mind controlling the party lawl). By the third time through, I found that chain pulling by attacking one group, killing the priestess, then dragging the rest to the next priestess, was much more organized than trying to grab all three groups together. But if you want chaos … all three is the way to go. Having an ele shaman there to thunderstorm them as soon as you get them grouped up gets bonus points for insanity. xD

Chain pulling is often a lot easier and can be faster. I have a post on chain pulls, comparing them to multi pull, coming up soon.
I also found doing multi pulls that while many sets of groups are faster to do together there are a lot of groups where it is far more time and effort to try to round them up at the same time. These days I have switched from pulling several ‘just because I can’ to pulling enough to make things actually faster. Well… most of the time.

One time some DPS said ‘pull all three’ on heroic paletress. Multipule mind-controls later we were very dead. Some pulls just DON’T work as multi pulls :P